Member
All right, with the pre-order release being two days away, I would assume that this suggestion is going to fall on deaf ears. And I am also well aware that a lot of players way more skilled than many of us will balk at this idea. But why is the AI so absurdly unbalanced?
For instance, I opened up a Touring Car by grinding and toiling away. I purchased the Pagini Zona R, because it seemed to have the most bang for the buck. I took this out on the TOTAL of two races I could do with it, and I crushed the medium difficulty by something like 25 seconds ahead of 2nd place. Contrast that with the inbalance of a much more difficult set of races that I can use the first car I unlocked for, which was the Mustang Fastback. I won't even try the "Hard" iterations of these races because the one time I did, the AI just took off like a bat out of hell and never looked back.
Look, WHY not let the online part of the game be where people have to show their skills? The majority of the SP races I have done were way more frustrating than fun, to the point where this, not any positive attribute of the game, is all I can think about. First off, knock off the CHEAP @ss rubber band AI. It robs players of well earned wins. Second, if possible, make the AI drive a little slower or give them slower cars than the players. If people want to be challenged like this, then let them hone their skills online, not in single player.
Criterion did just this with Burnout Paradise, and Rockstar does it with all their GTA and Midnight Club games. They make ALL races highly attainable and they let people get done with them so that its FUN. Then when they get online, they can go head to head with monster racers, if they want. But if it is at all possible, PLEASE dial down the difficulty of the AI in the races (boat, car, etc.) so that you aren't in the way of the players trying to make progress. Games are supposed to be fun not maddening.
Especially games this extensive and deep. Look, I get why SHORT games with SHORT storylines have to make it very difficult. Otherwise players will beat the game in three hours and feel cheated. But when you have HUNDREDS upon hundreds of events, a huge open world to explore, collectibles, races, and all sorts of different activities. Do you really need to infuse the game with unnecessarily, CHEAP difficulty?
Think about it. I am sure its too late by now. But I can promise you that this is a deal breaker for me. No way am I paying money for a game that just makes me angry.
Junior Member
I Agree, the rubber banding is really killing it for me and my friends. Because of this I know a few of my friends have loss interest in the game now and will not be buying which is a big bummer. Even if it was an option, or perhaps turn off for the easy races and turn on for the hard mode would be fine with me.
I know that the odds of this being fix is very slim, but this is something that really should be look at and fix in the near future.
Member
Yeah, with all due respect to the really skilled players who probably think the game is very easy, I’ve never understood why some developers seem to be so pompous and elitist that they want the game to be ridiculously difficult, so that they are basically putting up brick walls in front of most players and getting in the way of player progression.Originally Posted by XZero2505 Go to original post
The thing that makes me so angry about it, and I’m sorry for whinging, is that it actually seems malicious to me. I mean I know it’s not. I know developers are trying to make a fun game. And probably the developers themselves are at a much higher skill level of gamer than most players out there. But I’ve never understood the propensity of some developers to want to beat the player over the head with difficulty. Especially when players have that option available to them already by just going online to compete against the best players in the world!
You just don’t need cheap, artificial, obnoxious difficulty in a game this robust, and this varied, and this massive. The player is already going to have 100+ hours before they get close to 100% completion even without making it ridiculously difficult.
I just don’t get it
Junior Member
Member
You guys are actually making me wonder or something. Because I really expected to get flamed for this thread because on message forums people are like “Dude, get good you must just suck!!” LOL that’s what I’m used to seeing whenever anybody complains about difficulty levels in games like this.
But something just occurred to me when I read your posts in response to mine. I bet that of all the things that can be changed in the game, all the more complex coding, and programming, and algorithms that could be brought to a game that would take a lot of time I have a funny feeling that notching the difficulty down is probably a fairly easy thing to do. Of course I’m not a developer I may be way, way off with this? But I’m wondering if the developers read this, is it just a matter of making some quick, last minute tweaks so faster, easier progression is more attainable?
Junior Member
I really think the bots are just over power huge time it actually not really make the game that fun they need to twick around a little more to make it better gameplay or add some more difficulty for more challenging ppl where bots do using the catch up and leave normal along that what i think it should be done. Make it more fun as it was back in the crew 1, actually is starting to get annoying vsing this kind bots making the gameplay more frustrated when it should be way more fun. please do something about please before the release. Make normal as normal and make hard where bot always on ur butt that would be much better gameplay for everyone
Member
Being an old time "hardcore" racer (not all so far away from alien track times and playing in serious minded leagues 15 years or so ago), and now a much more casual and MUCH less skilled racer I can truly understand the plight on BOTH sides of the fence here.
What I think would be the BEST option for ALL players is not to simply make the bots easier to beat, nor more difficult to beat...but instead, the rubber-banding needs to scale better to various skill levels by providing more difficulty choices rather than just "normal" and "hard". Try adding 3 more difficulty settings in there so it would be 5 settings in total and thereby making the bots scale better up and down the skill ladder so that more players can enjoy the experience. "Easy", "Normal", "Moderate", "Hard", "WTF!" as just an example. Then figure out 5 good levels of the rubber banding that would be more appropriate for each of those settings. This is not the right way to code A.I. of course...but for the devs, its the cheapest/quickest way to do it at this point IMO.
The right way is to code REAL A.I. whose skills scale up and down dynamically according to the skill of the player. But that takes alot more time/money and also alot more cpu power/frames.
Member
BigShot, I see your point and that would be an all right compromise. But I actually think that skipping the whole complex difficulty thing in favor of just toning down the AI difficulty across the board would actually be better, not to mention a lot easier to implement 2 days before the game officially launches.
Member
If you do that then you end up fixing SOME of the races but hurting others (which may be too easy already, such as the Touring Cars on Normal). Best way to obtain a balance between races and players is to offer more difficulty levels IMO. If you play TC races on HARD it makes no sense...its too hard even if youre close in level Rec.
Here look at this video and watch it through. It will better illustrate my point about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef4QZwsAuMM
Member
Very fair point, BigShot1. Also, after we talked in chat on Steam, I spent a few final hours and decided to try an experiment before I went to bed very late last night. I grinded up my Mustang Fastback (first free car) to about level 240 out of 280. And once I got past level 200, most of the normal Street Car races were, in fact, very fair. But even at 240, the Hard races were stupid hard. After watching your video, where the Youtuber was single digits away from the recommended upgrade level but still had to fight like mad for 7th place in an 8 player race, and based on my own experiences with the "Hard" races, I think you are 100% correct.
Easier across the board would be too easy once you mod your car enough. I am not sure that baried, multiple skill levels are the way to go. But the ONLY way I would even consider buying this game now, EVER, is if they seriously tone down the Hard difficulty level. If they can play with some numbers last minute and just make the hard races both challenging and fair, I would buy the game.
Oh and I also grinded out the cash of a Dodge Viper, and leveled it up to about 240 as well. MUCH better car than the starting free car I played 99% of the open beta with. Still NOWHERE near a match for the Hard difficulty. This needs to be addressed, I believe.
